


Totally Open and Hedonistic

by earlgreymanatee



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: F/M, Polyamory, Processing, Relationship Advice, poly probs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 20:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8224162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreymanatee/pseuds/earlgreymanatee
Summary: Gilfoyle reluctantly discusses his romantic life with the only person he knows that's qualified to offer any relationship advice.





	

As a woman in the tech industry, Carla was both accustomed to and suspicious of men she only knew professionally randomly texting her wanting to hang out. But she was surprised to see such a text from Gilfoyle.

“hey dude. haven’t seen you since you quit. you should come by some time.”

Even over text she could hear his bored voice, as if he was somehow disinterested, even though he was the one texting her out of the blue.

She sighed and shook her head at herself at her phone as she typed up her reply. 

“And why should I do that?”

Her phone buzzed less than a minute later. Not so disinterested now, huh, Gilfoyle?

“i’m tired of talking to the same four idiots every day.”

She had to admit, she was more than a little curious what Gilfoyle was up to, texting her like this. She knew better than to trust his motivations, but she was eager to know what was up. Plus it would be entertaining to see what state Pied Piper was in since she had left. She texted him back and they set up a time later that week for her to come by.

***  
On her drive over she blasted her trusty female-fronted punk playlist in her car, like she always did to psych herself up for potentially unpleasant interactions with men. Which was… depressingly often, in her line of work. “If he tries to be a huge asshole or be creepy to you,” she told herself, “you can handle it. You’ve been able to get in his head and bother him before and you can do it again.”

She knocked on the door. Erlich opened it. Ugh. Well, it was his house.

“Why hello, Carla,” he said, sounding both pleased with himself and like he was plotting something. She would have tried to read into it, but that was kind of his default. “What brings you to my home? Please come in.” 

“Not here to see you, Erlich,” she said harshly as she walked in. Best to cut off any ideas he was having (he was always having ideas) early, establish herself as A Bitch as fast as she could. “I’m, uh, here to talk to Richard,” she bullshitted. 

Dinesh and Richard looked up from their computers, clearly also surprised to see her.

Erlich stepped back and gesturing at Richard grandly. “Don’t let me get in your way, then. If you need me, I will be in the shower.” As he walked away, he winked at her. Fucker.

“Oh, hey Carla….what’s up?” Richard asked, baffled. He looked around the room, seeing if anyone else there was going to claim her. Dinesh shrugged at him, and then went back to typing. He was still frosty to her since the last time she had fucked with him She was seething internally at Gilfoyle for inviting her over making it sound like at least more people than just him had wanted to see her. He hadn’t even told anyone else she was coming over.

“Oh, Gilfoyle wanted to talk to me. I don’t know about what,” she admitted. She wasn’t sure if Gilfoyle had intended for their meeting to be totally secret, in which case, he was the one who messed that up.

“Huh, that’s weird. Gilfoyle almost never wants to talk to anyone,” Dinesh responded, unhelpfully.

She was stuck in the work room, awkwardly making small talk with Richard and Dinesh, for several minutes before Gilfoyle appeared.

“Hey Carla. I was thinking of smoking a bowl. Care to join me?,” he said, as if he was just going about his day and she had just happened to show up, and that he had not specifically invited her over.

“Why not smoke out here? Erlich is already smoking constantly in every room of this house, so it’s not like the smell is a concern,” she said, hesitant to immediately go to his room. Was he trying to bang her? She was going to be so pissed if that was the case.

“I don’t feel like sharing if he wanders in. Plus, I’m sick of these two,” he said, gesturing at Dinesh and Richard, who ignored the insult.

She was deeply suspicious, but also incredibly curious. Whatever, if he tried anything she had no reservations about hightailing it out of there, and it’s not like he had tried anything before, or even been particularly weird towards women.

They headed to his room and wordlessly smoked a bowl together. She relaxed a little, partly from the weed, but also because this was what their friendship had largely consisted of in the past and it at least felt familiar. After a few more moments of sitting there in silence, she couldn’t handle it anymore.

“Alright. So are you going to tell me what this is about?” 

He looked up from tidying up is paraphernalia. “You are going to have to be more specific.”

“Inviting me over. You barely socialize, let alone with me. What’s going on?”

He sighed. “Alright. So, you’re gay right?”

Hoooooly shit, she had not expected this. Was Gilfoyle going to ask for her advice about working through a sexuality crisis? Was she the only queer person he knew? She was giddy with excitement.

“Well, bi, but yes,” she said excitedly.

“Sure. But you’ve had relationships with women before?”

“Dude. I have a girlfriend. We’ve been dating for like, three years, and you’ve met her, like, five times.”

“Irrelevant. I guess I need your advice. None of them out there would be any help,” he said, still not letting on to his emotions any more than he ever did.

“Right, of course not, why would they,” she agreed. 

“Exactly. Anyway, it’s about my girlfriend, Tara. You know-”

“Wait, you just need...relationship advice? This isn’t you having a Very Special Episode and telling me you are a huge queerdo like me.”

“No. You just are the only person I know that has a only healthy, long-term relationship with a woman.”

She sighed disappointedly. “Man, my recruitment stats are gonna be so low this year. HQ is not gonna be happy with me...HQ stands for Head-Queer, by the way,” she joked. She was eager for any dirty details into Gilfoyle’s personal life, so she was pushing past the slight disappointment.

He looked unamused, but then again, he always did. It was ok, she knew she was hilarious.

“Anyway, you know how me and Tara are in a polyamorous relationship? Well, despite this, she lied to me about sleeping with other guys. Why would she do that? I’ve been attributing it to human nature, being that people inherently wanting to lie, but I’m not so sure. What do you think?”

“Ok, back up. First of all, tell me a little more about what your girlfriend is like, just for context.” She knew from previous conversations that Gilfoyle had a girlfriend, and that they were poly, and that she lived far away, but she had never been able to get any more details about her out of him.

Gilfoyle eyed her suspiciously, aware she was partially just interested in hearing about his personal business.

“Her name’s Tara. She lives in Boston, so, ex-Catholic, now Satanist. We’ve known each other a while but only been dating fairly recently. She has pet snakes and does freelance web development. She also does a bit of camming.”

Carla nodded approvingly, “So she’s trans?”

Gilfoyle gave a look of surprise, thought still mild by most people’s standards. “How’d you figure that?”

“Satanist woman who does tech and camming describes, like, a third of my trans girl friends. So where did you two meet?”

“You don’t need to know that.”

“No, but I want to and you are the one asking me for advice.”

He stared at her stonily, but finally said, “Internet.”

“Yeah, no shit,” she rolled her eyes, “I meant where on the internet?”

“....4chan.”

“Ha, of course. Anyway, lemme see a pic of this girl,” she said, reaching her hand out and making a grabbing motion. Gilfoyle didn’t break his annoyed gaze at her, but seemed to understand that this was the price for getting Carla’s relationship advice and pulled out his phone, pulled up a picture and handed it to her. 

“Very cute, definitely out of your league,” she teased.

“Yeah, yeah. Can we get back to my question?”

Carla handed his phone back and bit back her desire to ask if Tara was also into girls. She was super cute, but perhaps she was already pushing her luck with needling Gilfoyle.

“Well how do you know she slept with other guys if she lied to you about it?”

“She felt bad about it and told me two days later.”

“Did she offer any explanation for why she lied?”

“She just said she ‘wasn’t sure how to tell me.’ And that she didn’t want to talk about it.”

Carla pondered for a moment. “Well, you said you’ve not been dating that long. If the poly thing is new to her maybe she still feels guilty about sleeping with other dudes. You did say she was brought up religious.”

“Hmm, possibly,” he said, sounding unconvinced.

“Maybe you should reassure her you do want to hear about it. Unless you are throwing off jealous vibes, and that’s what it is.”

“Oh no, not at all. Do you know what ‘compersion’ is?”

“Dude, I’m a queer person who used to live in Seattle. Yes, I know what compersion is,” she laughed. “Also, my girlfriend and I aren’t monogamous either. I know all the lingo and shit.”

“I’m completely genuine about it. I really want to know she had a good time.”

Carla decided to do her best to be genuinely helpful. She might enjoy upsetting Gilfoyle at every opportunity, but Tara seemed cool from what she had heard and almost definitely deserved good communication and a happy relationship. 

“Ok, step back: what is you two’s agreement? Are you supposed to discuss it with each other before you sleep with somebody? Do you always talk to each other about it after you do?”

Gilfoyle shook his head. “That’s the thing, our relationship is completely open and dictated by hedonism. She doesn’t need my permission to fuck anybody, nor is she obligated to tell me about anything she does. That’s why it doesn’t make any sense.”

She could tell this was the part that most upset him, the fact that it didn’t make any sense. She guessed Gilfoyle did want a little more structure in their relationship agreement, but felt he would be betraying his Satanist, hedonist values to ask for it.

“You know Gilfoyle, maybe the reason this is bothering you so much is that you would like a little more established rules of communication in your relationship? Before you say anything to me about hedonism, I’m not saying you need to make your relationship more restrictive, just that...you want a greater degree of communication in your relationship, especially as you two get more serious. I swear, this is good advice and not me fucking with you.”

“I see your point. But that still doesn’t explain her lying,” he said, still clearly bothered. 

“Honestly? Maybe she didn’t have a good time. Maybe the sex was mediocre. And she feels pressure to tell you what a great time she had, because you like hearing that, but she didn’t.”

Gilfoyle didn’t say anything, just slowly nodded, which Carla figured was his equivalent of an emotional breakthrough.

“Just remind her it’s ok if she didn’t have a good time,” she continued, “And it’s ok if she doesn’t want to tell you about it in detail. How does she feel when you tell her about when you sleep with other women.”

“Well, that’s still...theoretical at this point. As you know, I’ve been the only one keeping this whole shitshow above water, so, not had a lot of spare time.” Carla rolled her eyes; of course he managed to brag about his coding in the middle of a conversation about his relationship with his girlfriend.

“Dude, maybe that’s part of it too. Maybe she feels bad that she’s getting some and you aren’t. I know poly stuff doesn’t need to be one-for-one, but sometimes people feel like it’s ‘unfair’ or whatever.”

“So you are saying, she might feel guilty about sleeping around...because I’m not sleeping around?”

“Dude, I’m just giving my input based on what you are telling me, but like, maybe?”

“Well, I guess I know what I have to do.”

“Communicate. Have a long conversation about relationship boundaries.”

“I was going to say go out and started getting busy.”

“You...should probably have a long, honest conversation with your girlfriend first. Just to be sure.”

“Yeah, I’ll message her,” he said reluctantly, turning to his computer. 

Seeing that as her cue to leave, she got up and started gathering her things. 

“Hey, Carla?”

She turned around and looked at him questioningly. He held his arms up by his sides and gestured at his own torso, cocking his eyebrows as if to say, “How about it?”

“Oh, not a chance buddy,” she laughed. 

He shrugged and turned back to his computer.

She hesitated in his doorway. She had never been one to shy away from opportunities, and again, she was desperately curious. And they had, like, had a bit of a moment here. He was still an asshole, but she could be to and he knew that.

“Actually Gilfoyle, you know what? I’ll consider it.”

He smiled in a way that made her instantly regret her decision. “I knew you’d wouldn’t be able to resist all this.”

“I said I’d think about it! Don’t ruin this for yourself. Either way, talk to your girlfriend. I won’t even consider it unless I hear everything is good between you two. Ideally from her.”

Gilfoyle rolled his eyes but didn’t argue, turning back around to his keyboard. 

As she walked out and was closing the door behind her she heard the booping of a Skype call and then a “Hey, babe. What’s up?” coming through from the other end.

**Author's Note:**

> I know Gilfoyle's line about Tara lying about fucking other dudes was a throwaway line, but I could not resist writing some poly relationship processing. I went with Carla for help because a) she's awesome and b) she seemed like the only character who would be able to dispense any kind of useful poly relationship advice.
> 
> (Also now I kinda want Carla and Gilfoyle to platonically bang. Possible smutty sequel???)


End file.
